Maximizing Your Return on Content How to make your content more successful Hilary Marsh, Chief Strategist & President Content Company, Inc.

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Organizations publish a LOT of content

What don’t we publish??

• Product data • Reports • Press releases • News stories • Customer success stories • Executive bios

• Event information • Course details • Policies • FAQs • Mission statement • Job listings

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Content is the way our work is manifested in the world

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Just because…..

Because the boss said so Because the committee asked us to Because the committee told us to Because we have this program Because we do this thing Because we created the information Because we have no way to say “no” to the request Because we think we have to Because everyone else is Because Because

If you don’t know what you’re going for, how will you know whether you’re succeeding?

11h%ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding

Return on Content

3 pieces of information

1. Goal 2. KPI 3. Measuring & learning

Identifying the Goal Why are we publishing this?

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Effective content has a goal

• It’s published • Lots of people look at it

What is a true goal?

• Meets a business goal • Satisfies a user need

• Ideally, both

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Users meet their needs

Organization meets its goals

Balancing Goals & Needs

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Audience focus

Organization focus

Audience focus

Organization focus

http://queerideas.co.uk/2015/10/the-fundraising-paradox.html

http://xkcd.com/773/

Remember the content landscape

• Product data • Reports • Press releases • News stories • Customer success stories • Executive bios

• Event information • Course details • Policies • FAQs • Mission statement • Job listings

Content goals

Each piece of content needs a clear, explicit reason to exist Examples:

•  Bring in non-dues revenue •  Encourage joining or renewing membership •  Raise awareness and perception of endocrinology •  Help general practitioners care for patients •  Inspire more people to register for the event •  Reassure people about the organization’s stability •  Raise the quality of job applicants

Other content goals

• Benefits sales through identifying prospects and creating proper messaging

• Helps drive communications through keeping managers aware of initiatives they should be out front on

• Assists the executive team in identifying future leaders through writing, social media and presentation workshops

• Helps keep the tech budget on target by running a lean, mean CMS

--Ronell Smith

Other content goals

• Behavior flow and conversions • Direct and indirect feedback

—Jess Hutton

--Michael Andrews

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5 Whys

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Keep asking “why”

• Why are you publishing this content? • Why? • Why? • Why? • Why?

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30h%p://gadling.com/2008/05/01/cash-and-treasures-the-anMque-bo%le-dig/

The real goal is in there somewhere

Wrong time to ask

“why”

The reason is clear here

Making the goal measurable

How will you know it’s successful?

• Reached the audience in the channel that matched their expectations

•  The audience took the action you wanted them to take • Users took the next step you wanted them to make •  They were more satisfied with your organization •  They called customer service less •  They bought more stuff from you •  They talked you up to their friends/family/colleagues

Answer the right questions

• Executives • Site management • Content owners • Users

Efficiency ≠

Effectiveness

A case study

• Site redesign required a news article for each update on the home page

• Volume of news articles overwhelmed the site management staff

• Viewership to each article was relatively low • Would fewer articles mean fewer views?

Turning goals into KPIs

1. Benchmark where you are now • Content performance • Pain points • Tie back to business

2. What will constitute success? • Envision the desired goal • Make it measurable!

Some considerations

• Make sure your KPIs cover both organizational goals and user needs

•  Think about them from multiple perspectives

Download this worksheet: http://bit.ly/return-on-content-sheet

Doing the measuring

Measure, tweak, repeat

• Who needs to know? • How do they need to know it? • How to tweak it?

A plan Measuring the goal, and using the information about what we find

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Next steps

1.  Learn what works 2.  Use that information to develop goals 3.  Create an editorial calendar and templates for review time,

roles, and processes 4.  Share all with staff 5.  Track/measure and evolve

Resources

• My article and worksheet http://www.hilarymarsh.com/2016/04/27/return-on-content/

•  Aligning Business Goals with User Goals in Content by Michael Andrews http://storyneedle.com/aligning-business-goals-with-user-goals-in-content/

• Making Content Measurable by Jess Hutton http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/making-content-measurable/

•  Why Attempting to Establish the ROI of Content Is a Fool’s Errand by Ronell Smith https://medium.com/dissenting-opinion/why-attempting-to-establish-the-roi-of-content-is-a-fools-errand-d8b4fdfd3a6c#.39kpxyxzs

Return on Content

Thank you!

Hilary Marsh President & Chief Strategist

Content Company, Inc. hilary@contentcompany.biz

@hilarymarsh